Looking out for Iraq veterans and their kin
To say that the urban warfare American troops are seeing in Iraq is scary is certainly an understatement. Just ask Anthony Principi. He ran a riverboat unit in Vietnam's Mekong Delta and has two sons who've seen duty in Iraq. "I think anytime you're going door to door and you're not sure you're going to be hit," he says, "you're constantly living in that state of anxiety." It's enough to drive vets to booze, drugs, or mental hospitals. Principi should know: He's secretary of veterans affairs. But he also has a plan to help. Principi says the VA is getting ready to handle Iraq veterans suffering from war stress. "We learned some hard lessons from Vietnam," he says. He's also trying to deal with a more modern-day problem related to the war: two-income families who lose paychecks when a spouse has to leave home and a job to visit far-off hospitals. "What are we doing about that?" he frets. One solution Principi's studying: expanding war insurance to provide money for families of badly injured troops. "It's tough on the families," says Principi. "I mean these kids are frustrated."
A new ride for Jackie's bubble-top It's one of the most famous limos in the presidential fleet of Lincolns and Caddies. And now you could own it--for a cool million dollars. Whispers hears that the so-called bubble-top Lincoln, reserved for Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and a smaller sister to the limo JFK was assassinated in, is going on the auction block early next year. "The bubble-top might be the most important presidential car ever offered at auction," says Rob Myers of RM Auctions, which is manning the gavel at the Arizona Biltmore January 28. He thinks the car with the clear plastic roof could fetch $1 million. "We expect there will be considerable interest in this rare piece of American history." One reason: White House limos rarely make it to auction. And it won't be just Jackie O fans bidding. The car was used from 1962 to 1969 by LBJ, Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey and Spiro Agnew, Pope Paul VI, and the Apollo 8 crew. For gearheads, the options include flashing lights and a phone but no armor. Asked why anyone would sell this gem, an RM spokesman said simply, "The collector is cashing out."
Honest Abe's secret
Here's proof that nuthin's sacred in American politics. A new scholarly work about former President Abraham Lincoln, being published by Simon & Schuster in February, suggests that Honest Abe was gay. In The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, author C. A. Tripp writes that Lincoln slept with men and even wrote a poem about two men getting married. But historians are rushing to protest. Joan Flinspach, president of Indiana's Lincoln Museum, says: "The evidence is circumstantial."
Disney World, really
How did power couple Democrat James Carville and Republican Mary Matalin celebrate the election? They went to Disney World. Carville now plans to pen a book calling for a new Democratic strategy. "It will be sufficiently short," he says, "that it won't require a great deal of thought."
Liddy's next move
It's not too early to start whispering about Sen. Elizabeth Dole 's moves to run for vice president, say friends. Allies claim she's got enough votes to win the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which could propel the North Carolina senator into a run for veep in 2008.
Rove's last stand
Take note, future GOP presidential wannabes: Karl Rove is leaving politics with President Bush in 2008. "This will be the last presidential campaign," he vows, "I'll ever do."
Evolve or die
Nothing says Washington like a big-time lobbyist, and few are bigger than Tommy Boggs. But just how good--and politically agile--we're only now learning, thanks to the new insider book The Washington Century. In his page turner, author Burt Solomon describes Washington through the eyes of three D.C. clans, but it's Boggs that caught our eye. He's the son of two Democratic House members and the pre-eminent partner of Patton Boggs. He helped bring Bill Clinton to town and advised him to stand fast when threatened by impeachment and Monica Lewinsky. But Solomon tells us he's not a Democratic patsy, having told Bubba to his face that his muddled politics were to blame for the 1994 GOP capture of the House. Boggs's firm has cozied up to the GOP, and now just about half of its lobbyists are Republican. "Evolve or die" is how Solomon sizes up the Boggs story.
'The Project'
One of the more interesting journalistic ventures is how Newsweek embeds reporters in presidential campaigns every four years to produce an insider account of how it all went down. They call it "the Project." But this year's try is under fire. Bush campaign officials say they gave little access and did so only after Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas "begged" for it. The result: "The story reads like a dime-store novel. It's fiction," says a Bushie. And Democrat James Carville tells us that despite Newsweek 's account, he didn't leak former President Bill Clinton 's hospital-bed phone call to Sen. John Kerry. "I can assure you I did not," Carville says. Mag spokesman Ken Weine says, "We stand behind the reporting, and we'll let readers decide how much access our team was able to gain."
One more memorial
Sen. John McCain, the former Hanoi Hilton POW, reveals that he wasn't a big fan of "the wall" when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built. "I thought it was too funereal and too dark," he says. But that changed when he witnessed two fellow Vietnam vets crying and embracing by the wall in a sign of reconciliation. And if it worked for Vietnam, why not Iraq? Says McCain: "Someday there will be a memorial to those who sacrificed in the Iraq war, on the Mall."
Ambassador of Rock
Andras Simonyi, Hungary's ambassador to Washington, is fast winning the reputation as the "Rock-and-Roll Envoy." A guitarist who believes the power of rock helped bring down the Iron Curtain, Simonyi this week plans to shake up Embassy Row with his own concert and gabfest featuring a guest appearance by 1970s punk rocker and native Hungarian Tommy Ramone. Simonyi plans to strap on his guitar to play three Ramones tunes with Chuck Young of Rolling Stone on bass and Alexander Vershbow , the U.S. ambassador to Russia, on drums.
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With Ulrich Boser, Angie Cannon and Thomas Omestad
This story appears in the November 22, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.